Reviewlet: The Colour of Magic

I quite enjoyed Sky’s adaptation of The Colour of Magic. It’s not my favourite of the Discworld books, I didn’t come to it steeped in the works of Leiber, McCaffrey, Howard and the like that it frequently parodies so missed out on much of that side of it. I think the adaptation benefited from combining it with The Light Fantastic, which has a bit more of a plot to string the vignettes together. I’m not the greatest fan of Rincewind either, so don’t hold any great religious convictions about how he should be portrayed, and I thought David Jason worked very well in that role. Sean Astin wasn’t bad as Twoflower, if not spectacular, Tim Curry made a splendidly villainous Trymon, Christopher Lee was a suitably portentous replacement for Ian Richardson as the Voice of Death, James Cosmo was a fine Archchancellor, Karen David was a rather striking Liessa… in fact the cast as a whole worked well. It’s been a long time since I read either of the two source books, so I couldn’t say how closely it stuck to them, and wasn’t exactly laugh-out-loud funny for the most part, inevitably losing some of Pratchett’s word-play and references in the transition, but it passed the time nicely enough as a way to unwind.